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Monday, April 5, 2010

Broken Giraluna & Missing Shroom

I went to the pottery studio on Sunday to pick up my work from the craft shows the two previous weekends. One piece, this giraluna that I've had for years, was broken.




Another piece, a recent mushroom, was missing. I resisted the atavistic urge to smash the broken giraluna in the street and write death threats against an imaginary shroom thief on the studio whiteboard and tried to look at it as a series of philosophical lessons. Stoneware sculpture feels permanent and has the potential to last for millenia, but in reality, especially for stoneware sculptures with a lot of tendrily protrusions, these objects are temporary structures which move in and out of my life like any other person, place or thing. As for the allegedly stolen shroom, ownership is temporary and sometimes these things tend to change hands without much warning; it could be viewed as a compliment that someone would like my little piece of anti-art enough to steal it. Less philosophically, I wondered if I could use the damage and theft to get a free month of studio membership and maybe some clay out of it.

Today I was pleased to learn that someone actually bought the missing shroom, which is a somewhat greater compliment than if it had been stolen. It sold for $15, which brings my grand total of sales for the two weekends to $33, of which I receive $23.10.